Who Will Stand Up for the Christians? - Ronald S. Lauder (New York Times)

WHY is the world silent while Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East and Africa? In Europe and in the United States, we have witnessed demonstrations over the tragic deaths of Palestinians who have been used as human shields by Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza. The United Nations has held inquiries and focuses its anger on Israel for defending itself against that same terrorist organization. But the barbarous slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Christians is met with relative indifference.

The Middle East and parts of central Africa are losing entire Christian communities that have lived in peace for centuries. The terrorist group Boko Haram has kidnapped and killed hundreds of Christians this year — ravaging the predominantly Christian town of Gwoza, in Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, two weeks ago. Half a million Christian Arabs have been driven out of Syria during the three-plus years of civil war there. Christians have been persecuted and killed in countries from Lebanon to Sudan.

Historians may look back at this period and wonder if people had lost their bearings. Few reporters have traveled to Iraq to bear witness to the Nazi-like wave of terror that is rolling across that country. The United Nations has been mostly mum. World leaders seem to be consumed with other matters in this strange summer of 2014. There are no flotillas traveling to Syria or Iraq. And the beautiful celebrities and aging rock stars — why doesn’t the slaughter of Christians seem to activate their social antennas?

President Obama should be commended for ordering airstrikes to save tens of thousands of Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion and have been stranded on a mountain in northern Iraq, besieged by Sunni Muslim militants. But sadly, airstrikes alone are not enough to stop this grotesque wave of terrorism.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not a loose coalition of jihadist groups, but a real military force that has managed to take over much of Iraq with a successful business model that rivals its coldblooded spearhead of death. It uses money from banks and gold shops it has captured, along with control of oil resources and old-fashioned extortion, to finance its killing machine, making it perhaps the wealthiest Islamist terrorist group in the world. But where it truly excels is in its carnage, rivaling the death orgies of the Middle Ages. It has ruthlessly targeted Shiites, Kurds and Christians.

“They actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick” a Chaldean-American businessman named Mark Arabo told CNN, describing a scene in a Mosul park. “More children are getting beheaded, mothers are getting raped and killed, and fathers are being hung.”

This week, 200,000 Aramaeans fled their ancestral homeland around Nineveh, having already escaped Mosul.

The general indifference to ISIS, with its mass executions of Christians and its deadly preoccupation with Israel, isn’t just wrong; it’s obscene.

In a speech before thousands of Christians in Budapest in June, I made a solemn promise that just as I will not be silent in the face of the growing threat of anti-Semitism in Europe and in the Middle East, I will not be indifferent to Christian suffering. Historically, it has almost always been the other way around: Jews have all too often been the persecuted minority. But Israel has been among the first countries to aid Christians in South Sudan. Christians can openly practice their religion in Israel, unlike in much of the Middle East.

This bond between Jews and Christians makes complete sense. We share much more than most religions. We read the same Bible, and share a moral and ethical core. Now, sadly, we share a kind of suffering: Christians are dying because of their beliefs, because they are defenseless and because the world is indifferent to their suffering.

Good people must join together and stop this revolting wave of violence. It’s not as if we are powerless. I write this as a citizen of the strongest military power on earth. I write this as a Jewish leader who cares about my Christian brothers and sisters.

The Jewish people understand all too well what can happen when the world is silent. This campaign of death must be stopped.

Ronald S. Lauder is the president of the World Jewish Congress.

Israel Matzav: This is Islam: ISIS systematically beheading Christian

This is what Islam is really all about. ISIS, the Islamic group that has taken over Iraq (thank you President Hussein Obama) is systematically beheading Christian children. By the way, the nearest part of Iraq is about 300 miles from Israel.


If any of you think he's exaggerating....



And here's more:

A quick scan of Youtube shows the truth of what Arabo is saying - there are gruesome videos of heads on spikes, and many of live beheadings (one poor Christian is forced to say the Shahada 'there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet' and then beheaded anyway.)

Warning: don't google these things unless you have a strong stomach.

"They are absolutely killing every Christian they see," Arabo said of ISIS. "This is absolutely a genocide in every sense of the word. They want everyone to convert, and they want sharia law to be the law of the land."

When George Bush left office, United States armed forces were protecting Iraq. At the rate this is going, Barack Hussein Obama is becoming the enemy of all humanity. 

Middle East genocide; We do nothing as Muslims eradicate the last vestiges of Christians and Jews from nation after nation

We are witnesses to murder, and our governments are accomplices. The relentless destruction of the last remnants of the Middle East’s Judeo-Christian civilization is well under way. And we are silent.

Captives of political correctness, our governments cater to radical immigrant tantrums as our leaders contort the truth to deny the existence of Islamist terrorism. Meanwhile, our Middle Eastern “allies” and foes alike eradicate thousands of years of Jewish and Christian heritage. Our diplomats treat the persecution as a minor embarrassment, best ignored.

Getty Images

Muslims set fire to a Copt Christian church in Cairo.

The banishments and butchery aren’t new, but the breakdown of the last rotting order in the wake of the “Arab Spring” has empowered psychotic fanatics who do not even value the lives of the faithful, let alone the lives of unbelievers. This is the end-game, the final persecution of Christians clinging to lands they’ve called home for 2,000 years. Except for Israel and the rarest exceptions elsewhere, Jews are already gone from the realms that nurtured them since the early years of their faith.

A thousand years ago, there were more Christians in the Middle East than in Europe, and Jewish communities prospered from the Nile to the Tigris. Even a century ago, more than 20% of the region’s population was Christian, and Jews still adorned Arab cities with their talents.

Today, estimates put the Christian population of the region at under 5% and sinking rapidly — and only that high because of the 9 million Copts who remain, for now, in Egypt.

The birthplace of Christianity, Bethlehem, now has a Muslim majority of as much as 80% — a reversal that coincided with the West’s decision to embrace Palestinian terrorists as “partners for peace.” A few decades ago, Lebanon had a Christian majority. Now, with Christian numbers fading, it’s tugged between Shia Hezbollah and Sunni fanatics.

Slighted by the US occupation — as our government pandered to Muslim hardliners — the Christian population of Iraq has fallen by two-thirds over 10 years. And the most ferocious elements in the Syrian insurgency see no place for Christians in Syria’s future. Even Jordan, struggling to appease its own Islamists, has cracked down on Christian activities.

The Jews, of course, are already long gone.

But the stones of ruined churches cry out, and vanished synagogues haunt decayed Arab neighborhoods.

If you read the New Testament or study the formative centuries of Christianity, there are few references to western cities other than Rome. The names that dot the Epistles of St. Paul and histories of the church are now in Muslim hands: Alexandria, Damascus, Tarsus, Carthage, Ephesus, Nicaea, Constantinople and so many others. Even Mecca and Medina had thriving Christian and Jewish quarters before the first jihads.

Muslims Steal Land from Christian Monastery… in East Jerusalem When Israel builds apartment buildings in Jerusalem, Hillary Clinton denounces them as settlements. But when Muslims seize Christian land, John Kerry is silent

If this is what is happening while East Jerusalem is still largely under Israeli rule, imagine what would happen if the peace gang got its way and the Palestinian Authority/Hamas took complete control of it?

The head of a monastery in East Jerusalem on Monday accused residents of al-Eizariyya of building illegally on church land.

Al-Eizariyya residents are constructing buildings on the private lands of the Holy Monastery of Martha and Maria, “brushing aside all religious, social and national values,” said Sister Efpraxia.

“This is a dangerous violation in broad daylight, and construction is ongoing despite our frequent appeals and calls. Such provocative acts are not acceptable by any rational human,” the abbess added.

The nun appealed to President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah, custodian of holy sites in East Jerusalem, “to relieve the feeble people as soon as possible bringing these overt violations against the monastery’s property.”

She added: “Our properties and lands are not deserted properties, but rather Orthodox endowments and always will be. Next Saturday we will celebrate Lazarus Saturday. Dozens of pilgrims will visit the monastery from all over the world, and we wonder what we will tell them when they see these violations against the monastery’s property.”

When Israel builds apartment buildings in Jerusalem, Hillary Clinton denounces them as settlements. But when Muslims seize Christian land, then John Kerry is silent. Muslim Settlements are one of those things that we just don’t talk about, whether they are in Jerusalem or Paris.

The story is a familiar one. A Muslim clan claims ownership of the land and unilaterally seizes it defying the authorities to do anything about it. Due to the monastery being in a part of the city that the Palestinian Authority claims as its own, Israel has little ability to enforce the law there without running international protests.

To see what would happen to the Christians in Jerusalem if it falls into Muslim hands, we need look no further than what did happen to Christians in Bethlehem.

Christians used to make three-quarters of Bethlehem’s population. Now they make up a third.

George Rabie, a 22-year-old taxi driver from the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala, is proud of his Christianity, even though it puts him in daily danger.

Two months ago, he was beaten up by a gang of Muslims who were visiting Bethlehem from nearby Hebron and who had spotted the crucifix hanging on his windscreen.

A telling sign of how bad things have gotten is that the last time municipal elections were held in Bethlehem, Hamas won almost half the seats on the municipal council.

And under Hamas rule, as under the rule of their Muslim Brotherhood allies in Egypt, bad things tend to happen to Christians.

Screaming Christian woman sexually assaulted on the street in Egypt I saw this video going viral in some Arabic sites, but MEMRI's translation seems to verify that it is what they said it was - Egyptian Islamist men sexually assaulting a Christian woman on the street in the name of Allah:

WSJ: Cooper, Huffman and Adlerstein: The Most Persecuted Religion Christians are targeted—by independent groups or governments—in some 131 countries world-wide.

At the height of the Nazi Holocaust, the wretched human cargo spilling out of cattle cars onto the platforms of Auschwitz was immediately subject to a brutal selektion by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, whose flick of a finger to the left meant immediate death in a gas chamber; to the right, slave labor and slow death from starvation or disease.

Fast forward to 2012 Nigeria, where a latter-day incarnation of selektion has been used—this time not against Jews, but against Christians.

Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth. Among its chief blessings are oil and a large array of religious, tribal and language groups. Yet conflict, violence and terrorism are part of reality there, too.

Recently a new line of inhumanity was crossed. In October, armed attackers, presumed to be members of Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group with links to al Qaeda, invaded the Tudun Wada Wuro Patuje area, entering the off-campus housing of the Federal Polytechnic State University.

The attackers called students out of their rooms and asked for their names. Those with Christian names were shot dead or killed with knives. Students with traditionally Muslim names were told to quote Islamic scripture. The selektion completed, at least 26 bodies were left in lines outside the buildings.

Enlarge Image

Reuters

Worshippers arrive at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Abuja, Nigeria

The attack was a pogrom, the victims of which were African Christians, not European Jews. To be sure, it lacked the scale and scope of Hitler's total war against the entire Jewish people. The Boko Haram seem content to burn churches and to maim and murder those—including other Muslims, but especially Christians, by the scores—who would stop the spread of their version of Shariah law in Nigeria alone.

But is this where it ends?

Think again. To classify these outrages as nothing more than tribal and territorial ones with a veneer of religion is a moral outrage. We are dismayed that Johnnie Carson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, sanitized the intentions of this murderous group while giving a "Live at State" online interview in September. "The bulk of the Boko Haram movement is . . . trying to do everything in its power to show that the government is ineffective in the defense of its people and in the protection of government institutions," Mr. Carson said. Two months before he spoke, Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for the murder of dozens of Christians in the city of Jos—just one of many such attacks.

In earlier times, armies clashed over territory. Objectives were clear, as was the identity of the "enemy," lurking beyond a defined border. Nowadays people in too many parts of the world are taught to identify as the enemy neighbors who are indistinguishable from themselves, save by their beliefs. They have to be "selected" before they can be butchered. Whatever the original cause of a conflict, once religion becomes the driving ideological tool, it is no longer just about oil reserves or farmland.

Today, Islamist extremists' rage has the power to transform small, local conflicts into infernos that can snuff out lives thousands of miles away. Threatened targets of religious hatred today include Hindus, Sunnis, Shiites, Bahais and Jews, but the most widely menaced are Christians. A Pew Forum study last year found that Christians are persecuted—by independent groups or governments—in 131 of the 193 countries in the world.

We cannot cure religious strife, but we must take action to forestall ever-increasing murder and mayhem in the name of God. International bans against blasphemy, offensive cartoons and videos will do nothing to stem the tide.

For starters, religious leaders, human-rights organizations and the United Nations must lobby all governments to establish laws that guarantee protection from violence to religious minorities within their own borders. That is a Herculean task, which must be led by the United States. In his second term, President Obama can steer a new course for U.S. foreign policy that links future foreign aid to Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond to this basic human right.

If America fails to exercise leadership, it will further embolden those who invoke God's name to murder and maim families in their houses of prayer and, as in Pakistan earlier this year, young girls who dare dream of an educated future. Theological manipulators of hatred will not be deterred unless and until they face the long arm of international action.

We must, and we can, ensure that the faithful attending a mosque on Friday, a synagogue on Saturday or a church on Sunday can be confident that they'll return home safely. We urge the president to use the next four years to protect not religions, but the religious, wherever they may be.

Rabbi Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rev. Huffman is the pastor emeritus of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif. Rabbi Adlerstein is director of interfaith affairs at the Wiesenthal Center.

A version of this article appeared December 22, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Most Persecuted Religion.

American Muslims Stone Christians

If any normal America can watch this video and NOT be infuriated with the brazen attack by Muslims in the middle of the day, while police stand by and watch, then you no longer deserve to be considered a normal American.

Graphic video: What a 'moderate' Islamic revolution does to Christians (and to Jews if they get the chance)

You all remember Tunisia, the place where they had the 'moderate' Muslim revolution, and where the 'Islamists' weren't supposed to be quite so Islamic. Here's a graphic video of what recently happened (posted Saturday) to a Muslim who converted to Christianity in Tunisia.

Raymond Ibrahim describes what you're about to see (if you stay to watch it - I just threw my 12-year old out of here because I don't want him seeing it).

Liberal talk show host Tawfiq Okasha recently appeared on "Egypt Today," airing a video of Muslims slicing off a young man's head off for the crime of apostasy -- in this instance, the crime of converting to Christianity and refusing to renounce it. The video—be warned, it is immensely graphic—can be seen here (the actual execution appears from minute 1:13-4:00). For those who prefer not to view it, a summary follows:

A young man appears held down by masked men. His head is pulled back, with a knife to his throat. He does not struggle and appears resigned to his fate. Speaking in Arabic, the background speaker, or "narrator," chants a number of Muslim prayers and supplications, mostly condemning Christianity, which, because of the Trinity, is referred to as a polytheistic faith: "Let Allah be avenged on the polytheist apostate"; "Allah empower your religion, make it victorious against the polytheists"; "Allah, defeat the infidels at the hands of the Muslims," and "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger."

Then, to cries of "Allahu Akbar!"— Allah is greater!"—the masked man holding the knife to the apostate's throat begins to slice away, severing the head completely after approximately one minute of graphic knife-carving, as the victim drowns in blood. Finally, the severed head is held aloft to more Islamic slogans of victory.

Visibly distraught, Tawfiq Okasha, the host, asks: "Is this Islam? Does Islam call for this? How is Islam related to this matter?...These are the images that are disseminated throughout the electronic media in Europe and America…. Can you imagine?" Then, in reference to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, whose political influence has grown tremendously, he asks, "How are such people supposed to govern?"

...

Any number of Islamic legal manuals make explicitly clear that apostasy is a capital crime, punishable by death. The first "righteous caliph," a model of Muslim piety, had tens of thousands of former Muslims slaughtered—including by burning, beheading, and crucifixion—simply because they tried to break away from Islam. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the most authoritative reference work on Islam in the English language, "there is unanimity that the male apostate must be put to death."

Finally, a word on the "prayers" or supplications to Allah made by the Muslim executioners in the video: these are standard and formulaic. In other words, these are not just masked, anonymous butchers who pray to Allah as they engage in acts of cutting throats and holding up heads, these are top-ranking Muslim leaders, who appear regularly on TV, who invoke such hate-filled prayers.

Let's go to the videotape.

WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC - WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK



I can't wait to hear all the excuses from the Muslims - that he wasn't an apostate, that they weren't Muslims, that the video isn't authentic, all the usual excuses. And this is the sort of thing we can look forward to in Egypt and Libya and maybe Syria soon too.

Bob "Hatchet Job" Simon and His Christians

Bob Simon was surprised that Israel's US Ambassador Michael Oren presumed that he would do a 'hatchet job' on a story on Israel.

{I am updating so go to the end where I am adding material if you've been here previously}
_____________

But, of course, it was a hatchet job.

Here are portions of the text from the transcript of Bob Simon's April 22 '60 Minutes' piece, "Christians of the Holy Land", Harry Radliffe, producer, - with my comments in square bracackts in italics (and the video clip is here):-

The lead-in sets the tone:

(CBS News) The exodus from the Holy Land of Palestinian Christians could eventually leave holy cities like Jerusalem and Bethlehem without a local Christian population, Bob Simon reports. Why are they leaving? For some, life in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become too difficult.

[wait, what 'exodus'? what 'Holy Land'? are Christians leaving...Israel? or what? and, by the way, aren't Jews a people who have holy cities? should that not figure in? do Muslims have holy cities? So, where is this "Holy Land"? Is it only "Occupied Palestine"? Jordan is not part of the "Holy Land"? They'd be disappointed as their tourism (see below) depends on that characterization. Simons never develops for the listerner/viewer the reality, in all its proportions and complexity. he 'smoothes over' all the politics, the history - flattening it out so thye viewere is putty in his hands]

Christianity may have been born in the Middle East, but Arab Christians have never had it easy there, especially not today. In Iraq and Egypt, scores of churches have been attacked, hundreds murdered. In Syria, revolution seriously threatens Christian communities. The one place where Christians are not suffering from violence is the Holy Land [but they are, at the hands of fundamentalist Islamists who punish them as part of their fight with Israel in Gaza, and all throughout the Palestinian Authority but as you'll see later on, Simons allows that to slip away, too]: but Palestinian Christians have been leaving in large numbers for years. So many, the Christian population there is down to less than two percent, and the prospect of holy sites, like Jerusalem and Bethlehem, without local Christians is looming as a real possibility.

[Sounds ominous, does it not? And who is at fault?]

This is what the Holy Land looks like today. Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. [Jesus was born in "Bethlehem of Judea" - that is, Judea, not "Palestine"]. Nazareth, where he grew up. Jerusalem, where he died and where Christians believe he was resurrected. Nazareth is inside the state of Israel. Bethlehem is on the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Christian section of Jerusalem is also under Israeli control. [actually, the neighborhood is termed the "Christian Quarter' but Christians live all throughout]

Bob Simon: When you first came here in 1964 [when Jordan occupied the area], what was the percentage of Christians in the old city?
Theophilos: There were around 30,000 of-- Christians living in the Old City.
Bob Simon: And now how many are there?
Theophilos: Very few.
So few, some 11,000 Christians out of a population of almost 800,000 -- just one and a half percent. [wait, but what was the previous percentage?]

Religious leaders are afraid Jerusalem could become a museum, a spiritual theme park, a great place for tourists and pilgrims, but not for the Arab Christians whose roots date back to the church's very beginnings. [but were there Arabs in Jerusalem when Christianity began?]

Mitri Raheb: Christianity started here. The only thing that Palestine [don't forget: "Palestine" is a post-135 CE geopolitical concept; don't allow Simons to mix you up with today's "Palestine".] was able to export so successfully was Christianity.
Mitri Raheb is a Palestinian, a Christian and a Lutheran minister from Bethlehem. He runs schools, cultural centers and health clinics. [and Israel considers him ma 'racist' and an 'anti-Semite']

Mitri Raheb: Christianity has actually on the back a stamp saying, "Made in Palestine." [it does? by whom? is that correct? no, it isn't. it's a propaganda ploy]

Palestinian Christians, once a powerful minority, are becoming the invisible people, squeezed between a growing Muslim majority and burgeoning Israeli settlements [we in the Jewish communitiesd in Yesha have nothing to do and surely are not squeezing Christians]. Israel has occupied the West Bank for 45 years.

[and the figures are: in Israel,it was reported in December 2011 that Christians constitute roughly 2 percent of the country’s citizens, or 153,000 people out of the 7.5 million population, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics. According to the figures, 80.4% of the Christians in Israel are Arabs and the rest are immigrants who arrived under the Law of Return, since they had Jewish relatives. The majority of those in the second category of Christians arrived during the large waves of aliya from the former Soviet Union. Nazareth has the largest Christian community with some 22,000 people; Haifa follows with 14,000, Jerusalem with 11,000 and Shfaram has 9,200 Christian residents. The CBS statistics also show the makeup of Christian families in Israel. The average family has two children, slightly fewer than the 2.2 for Jewish families and the 3 for Muslim citizens. so maybe Christians also have their own demographic problem? Moreover: Israel is the only Middle East nation where the Christian population has grown in the last half century (from 34,000 in 1948 to 140,000 today), in large measure because of the freedom to practice their religion. And It was during Jordan's control of the Old City from 1948 until 1967 that Christian rights were infringed and Israeli Christians were barred from their holy places. The Christian population declined by nearly half, from 25,000 to 12,646. Since then, the population has slowly been growing. Some Christians have been among those inconvenienced by Israel's construction of the security fence, but they have not been harmed because of their religious beliefs. They simply live in areas where the fence is being built. The proportion of Christians in the Palestinian territories has dropped from 15 percent of the Arab population in 1950 to less than 1 percent today. Three-fourths of all Bethlehem Christians now live abroad, and the majority of the city’s population is Muslim. The Christian population declined 29 percent in the West Bank and 20 percent in the Gaza Strip from 1997 to 2002. By contrast, in the period 1995–2003, Israel’s Arab Christian population grew 14.1 percent (CAMERA, December 24, 2004).]

Israel built the wall over the last 10 years, which completely separates Israel from the occupied West Bank. The wall was built to stop Palestinian terrorists from getting into Israel. And it's worked. Terrorism has gone down 90 percent. At the same time, the wall completely surrounds Bethlehem, turning the "little town" where Christ was born into what its residents call "an open air prison." [you do not see those quotation marks on the screen, do you?]

...The Anastas family lives on the third floor. This is the view from the kitchen, from the master bedroom and bathroom. The children's room has a good view of this Israeli guard tower. The family runs a souvenir shop on the ground floor, sells Christian artifacts on what used to be the busiest commercial street in town. Now, it's a dead end...Claire Anastas: I tell them, we have to stay. We need to stay and struggle and fight. This is our cross. [too bad Simons doesn't clarify exactly which wall he is referring to: the security barrier of the wall Israel has to erect after Arabs firebombed and shot at peaceful religious pilgrims trying to safely reach Rachel's Tomb]

...Michael Oren, who used to be Israel's director of Interreligious Affairs, is Israel's ambassador to the United States...according to Ambassador Oren, they're thriving. The reason Christians are leaving the West Bank, he says, is Islamic extremism. [why doesn't Simons interview Christians who, as I know, have a different opinion that the Christians he has allowed to appear? btw, I think Oren made a poor showing and he could - or did he and it was edited out - supllied better information]]...I think that the major problem in the West Bank as in elsewhere in the Middle East is that the Christian communities are living under duress.
Bob Simon: And this duress is coming from Muslims, not from the Israel occupation?
Ambassador Michael Oren: I believe that the major duress is coming from that. [that's it, Mr. Ambassador?]

[And what is this doing in the transcript? A producer's note of excitement for his anti-Israel angle?]

[Zahi Khouri: Great selling point. Easy to sell to the American public.]


Zahi Khouri: I'll tell you I don't know of anybody and I probably have 12,000 customers here. I've never heard that someone is leaving because of Islamic persecution. [he's lying]

[and Bob adds here: In 2009, this group of Christian activists did something unprecedented. They published a document called Kairos, the original 1985 one was against South African apartheid, criticizing Islamic extremism and advocating non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation which they called a sin against God.  That "document" was roundly criticized by many Christians and Jews.]

Ari Shavit: Israel is not persecuting Christians as Christians. The Christians in the Holy Land suffer from Israeli policies that are a result of the overall tragic situation. And this, of course, has consequences for everybody. [they don't suffer from Islamists?]

Bob Simon: For Israel, there could be serious economic consequences. According to Israeli government figures, tourism is a multi billion dollar business there. Most tourists are Christian. Many of them are American. That's one reason why Israelis are very sensitive about their image in the United States. [Jews are such money-grubbers.  heavens that Israel should simply be concerned about things like truth, facts, lack of bias, etc.] And that could be why Ambassador Oren phoned Jeff Fager, the head of CBS News and executive producer of 60 Minutes, while we were still reporting the story, long before tonight's broadcast. He said he had information our story was quote: "a hatchet job."

Michael Oren: It seemed to me outrageous. Completely incomprehensible that at a time when these communities, Christian communities throughout the Middle East are being oppressed and massacred, when churches are being burnt, when one of the great stories in history is unfolding? I think it's-- I think it's-- I think you got me a little bit mystified.
Bob Simon: And it was a reason to call the president of-- chairman of CBS News? ...Nothing's been confirmed by the interview, Mr. Ambassador, because you don't know what's going to be put on air.
Michael Oren: Okay. I don't. True. [but he's no dummy. when has Simon or "60 Minutes" ever done a fair piece on Israel?]
Bob Simon: Mr. Ambassador, I've been doing this a long time. And I've received lots of reactions from just about everyone I've done stories about. But I've never gotten a reaction before from a story that hasn't been broadcast yet.

Michael Oren: Well, there's a first time for everything, Bob.

Bob Simons:  Pilgrims have been coming here since 1106 AD [why only from then?] to wash themselves in the holy fire, to celebrate the founding miracle of Christianity. They will certainly continue to do so. But how many will be coming from the neighborhood? That's not a religious question anymore. It's political. [and one in the court of the Arab Muslims. Israel permits religious freedom and Christian residency]

In WSJ, False Pro-Palestinian Letters Assail Ambassador Oren

Sometimes the importance of an argument can be seen in the ferocity of the distorted attack against it.

 

A few days after The Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed entitled  "Israel and the Plight of Middle East Christians" (March 9, 2012) by Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, a deluge of irate  and distorted rejoinders by Palestinians and their partisan supporters filled the letters page -- with not one letter underscoring the merit of his important arguments.

 

Oren had simply stated the obvious -- that Israel treats its Christians with greater respect than any other country in the Middle East, but he was accused of all manner of sins. His detractors charged him with fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment, presuming to speak on behalf of people for whom he had no right to advocate, distorting the facts about Palestinian Christians and ignoring the discrimination Christians endure in Israel.

 

Not only were the attacks false, many of them were irrelevant. Christians aresafer in Israel than they are in any other country in the Middle East. That is an undeniable fact.

 

If Oren's decision to make this point offends Palestinians and their supporters in the U.S., perhaps they should rethink their strategy of using Palestinian Christians as a symbol to lambaste Israel. Now that the world has witnessed some clarifying catastrophes in Egypt and Iraq where Christians have been brutally murdered and driven from their homelands, it is clear this strategy has backfired. The chickens have come home to roost and none of the letters written in response to Oren's op-ed can shoo them away

.

 

There is no falsehood about Israeli policy that can stand in the face of the truth: that Christians have been beaten and run over by military vehicles in Egypt, arrested in Saudi Arabia for praying, and sentenced to death in Iran.  There can be no denying the firebombing of churches throughout the Arab and Muslim world.  The facts prove that for Christians, Israel is an island of tolerance in a turbulant sea of persecution.

---

Ambassador Oren reported that Christians are leaving Egypt and Iraq to avoid beatings and massacres inflicted on them by Muslim extremists. He reported that in Iran, conversion to Christianity is a capital offense and that Saudi Arabia "outlaws private Christian prayer."

 

All true.

 

He then made some other obvious points:

1. "As 800,000 Jews were once expelled from Arab countries, so are Christians being forced from lands they've inhabited for centuries."

 

2. "The only place in the Middle East where Christians are not endangered but flourishing is Israel. Since Israel's founding in 1948, its Christian communities (including Russian and Greek orthodox, Catholics and Protestants) have expanded more than 1,000%."

Oren then talked about Arab Christians serving in the Israeli government and in the military. He also noted that Israeli Arab Christians "are on average more affluent than Israeli Jews and better educated, even scoring higher on their SATs."

 

The ambassador then acknowledged that Israeli Christians do encounter intolerance in Israel, but he contrasted this intolerance with the hostility directed at Christians throughout the rest of the Middle East "where hatred of Christians is ignored or encouraged."

 

This is all true.  In contrast, four letters written in response were full of distortions, they included:

 

1. The PLO Response

 

The letter submitted by PLO representative Maen Rashid Areikat accuses Oren of presenting a "distorted and inaccurate account of Christians in Palestine" and of omitting Israeli violations against the Palestinian Christian community. His first gambit is to condemn Israel for revoking the residency rights of Palestinians living in Jerusalem.

 

While it is true that Arabs, regardless of their religion, can and do lose their right to live in Jerusalem after being away from the city for extended periods of time, they can easily avoid this problem by applying for Israeli citizenship. In fact, there is an increase in such applications whenever it looks like East Jerusalem may become part of a Palestinian state.

 

In January, 2008, McClatchy Newspapers reported an increase in the number of applications for Israeli citizenship on the part of Arabs living in Jerusalem.McClatchy told the story of Salim Shabane, a Palestinian living in Jerusalem who applied for Israeli citizenship. McClatchy reported:

In 2007, according to the Israeli Interior Ministry, Shabane and 500 other residents of East Jerusalem requested Israeli passports, up from 200 in each of the previous three years.

 

Shabane's decision to seek full Israeli citizenship reflects the awkward reality for Arabs in Jerusalem: Though many want to see an independent Palestinian state, they don't want to be part of it.

 

"My work and my life are inside Israel," Shabane said. "I am very proud to be an Arab and Palestinian, but for practical reasons I'm not able to be part of the Palestinian Authority."

 

Though the number of Arabs seeking passports is relatively small, there's an uncomfortable acknowledgement, especially among the Arab middle class in Jerusalem, that their lives could get substantially worse under Palestinian rule."

For more information about this phenomenon, go here and here.

 

Areikat also condemns Israel for imposing "an onerous permit system to access the Holy Selpucher in Jerusalem or the baptism site on the River Jordan. Even family visitations between Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem are heavily restricted."

 

Does Areikat truly expect Israel to give Palestinians living in Gaza, a territory controlled by Hamas -- a terror group that denies Israel's right to exist and which is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis -- free and unfettered access to the West Bank and Jerusalem? Gaza is a regular source of rocket attacks that terrorize Israeli citizens.  Even this very day.

 

And does he really expect Israel to allow Palestinians living in the West Bank free and unfettered access to Jerusalem in light of the ongoing hostility between Israel and the Palestinians? This is simply ludicrous. In times and areas of conflict, checkpoints and permit systems are simply a lamentable fact of life.

 

Areikat also invokes the vandal attacks on Christian properties in Israel to prove the state does not respect the rights of Christians. Such attacks were detailed in the Jerusalem Post a leading Israeli paper, which reported the following:

In comments made to The Jerusalem Post, a spokesman for Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the minister views any harm inflicted on the different religious congregations in the country, "and certainly on the Christian community," very seriously.

 

He added that Yishai will not allow such incidents to become routine and will act together with relevant ministry and government officials, as well as law enforcement authorities, "to eradicate the phenomenon and bring the criminals responsible to justice."

Such attacks are despicable and the Israeli government must do all it can to catch the perpetrators -- whoever they are. But for Areikat to invoke them as if they are evidence of an indifference toward Christian well-being in Israel is the height of hypocrisy.

 

Does Areikat think we have forgotten what has happened to churches andChristians in the Gaza Strip under Hamas control? Does he think we do not know that the constitution of the Palestinian Authority states "The principles of Islamic Shari'a shall be the main source of legislation" and that Shariah requires Christians to behave in a subordinate to Muslims?

 

To top it off, Areikat asserts that there has been "a long history and deeply rooted culture of tolerance and integration in Palestine." This is tenable if one ignores the anti-Jewish riots of 1929 and 1936 and the ongoing hostility directed at Christians in Palestinian society documented by Justus Reid Weiner and the violence directed at the First Church of Bethlehem during the First Intifada.

 

This church, which was recently visited by officials from the Palestinian Authority who said it was not a recognized legitimate church, was subject to 14 firebomb attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In addition to guiding people to their seats for worship, ushers in this church became adept at extinguishing firebombs with buckets of water kept in the sanctuary just for that purpose. Its pastor has been shot at, and hit once in the shoulder. If this is tolerance, then what does intolerance look like?

 

The evidence of anti-Christian hostility in Palestinian society is simply overwhelming. Just how stupid does Areikat think we are?

 

2. Reverand Robert O. Smith's Response

 

Another letter, this one submitted by Rev. Robert O. Smith, a high-ranking official from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), came close to rivaling Areikat's letter in its deceptiveness. (Note: Rev. Smith was writing as a private citizen and not as a representative from ELCA). In his letter, Smith wrote that Oren's letter "stands in sharp disagreement with the perspectives shared by those he presumably wants to protect. Mr. Oren seeks to speak for Palestinian Christians before he has spoken with them."

 

Clearly, Rev. Smith did not read Oren's piece very closely. It begins with a description of a conversation Oren had with Christians in Bethlehem about the fear they had of Hamas. Oren has spoken with Christians in the West Bank.

 

And when Smith says that Oren's piece "stands in sharp disagreement with the perspectives shared by" Palestinian Christians, he is simply being disingenuous. The fact is Palestinian Christians do speak about fears of Muslim oppression.

 

For example, at the recent Christ at the Checkpoint Conference organized by Bethlehem Bible College, Pastor Nihad Salman testified to the concerns Christians in the West Bank have regarding Muslim hostility toward Christians. After speaking about the impact of high unemployment on Christians in the West Bank, he said that because Christians comprise only one or two percent of the population in the territory, they are affected psychologically.

You are afraid. And we have many times when people are afraid of what is happening in the Arabic Spring. Will the Muslims you know, take over? If it is true or not true. Whatever the outcome of that... what will happen? Will after Saturday come Sunday? So this is the type of thing that makes Christians want to run away.

The reference to Saturday and Sunday is to a well known proverb in the Middle East about Muslim hostility toward Jews (whose day of rest is on Saturday) and Christians (whose day of rest is on Sunday).  The question Pastor Salman is asking is, given that Islamist groups are coming to power across the region ("Arabic Spring") and having already persecuted and expelled their Jews ("Saturday"), will these Arab countries now increase their persecution of Christians ("Sunday")?

 

Also at this conference, another Pastor, Labeeb Madanat said, "There are pressures. There is discrimination. The dhimma system is a system of discrimination. We do not deny that."

 

How exactly does this testimony offered by Palestinian Christians -- at an event they organized -- contradict what Oren stated? And does their testimony foment anti-Muslim sentiment the way Rev. Smith said Oren's piece does?

 

What is so alarming for Rev. Smith, who has worked assiduously to use Christian suffering as a symbol to focus attention on Israel is that Christians from the Middle East have become increasingly vocal about the suffering they endure under Muslim rule.

 

For example, at a recent conference about Christians in the Middle East(organized by CAMERA), Juliana Taimoorazy, founder of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council reported stated that since June 2004, churches in Iraq have been bombed more than 80 times. Sometimes, multiple churches would be bombed at the same time as part of a coordinated attack. "Most of these attacks happened on Fridays, marking the day of Islamic prayer," she said. Clergy have been routinely kidnapped and killed on a regular basis. Even children have been killed by Islamists, Taimoorazy reported.

 

And at a recent prayer event held at a Coptic Church in Rhode Island, Dinaa Girgis called detailed the suffering Christians endure in Egypt. An article about the event, written by this analyst states the following:

Dr. Douaa Girgis, who described the events in Egypt before, during and after the Jan. 25 uprising. After describing the attack on the church in Alexandria that took place on Dec. 31, 2010, Girgis told the audience, that attacks against Christians are a common thing in Egypt.
"It happens pretty much on a weekly basis," he said.
Girgis told the audience about young girls who are kidnapped, isolated from their families and forced to convert to Islam. The government, she said, is purposefully not prosecuting the perpetrators of kidnappings.
She told the audience about the discrimination that Christians endure in Egypt. Christian physicians are not allowed to practice certain specialties such as obstetrics and gynecology because Muslim law prohibits Christians from touching Muslim women.
Discrimination and regular attacks against Christians have prompted 100,000 Copts to leave Egypt in the past year, she said. Things are likely to get worse in light of recent parliamentary elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists won approximately 75 percent of the seats. With this victory, Christians could be forced to pay discriminatory taxes, otherwise known as the jizya.

All of this testimony supports Oren's premise.

 

3. Arab Christian Response from Bethlehem 

 

And the distortions just keep on coming. Fr. Jamal Khader, a Catholic priest living in Bethlehem (and signer of the dishonest Kairos 

 

Perhaps this is true.  And if it is, it is unacceptable.  But discrimination in Israel is certainly not state policy.  Racism and xenophobia exist everywhere in the world.  They are regrettable elements of human nature and should be combated.  However, Israeli law does not condone discrimination.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the laws of many neighboring states.

 

It is also important to acknowledge the factors that contribute to Israeli fear of Arabs. Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab countries who refuse to recognize the Jewish state. This reality must have an undeniable impact on attitudes toward Arabs in Israel. In the long run, the best hopes for good relations between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs (of all faiths), is for Arabs and Muslim leaders to make peace with the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

 

Conclusion

 

There are two points on which Ambassador Oren may have misstated statistics, though neither instance alters the overall accuracy of the individual point or the larger argument.

 

It appears the number of Coptic Christians who have fled Egypt may be lower than he stated. He wrote that 200,000 Christians have fled the country, butrecent estimates put that figure at approximately 100,000 since Mubarak's ouster. An NGO report issued in September 2011 stated that this number could reach 250,000 by the end of the year. Thus, there's no doubt Coptic Christians have faced intense persecution and have fled in substantial numbers.

 

Secondly, he states that "the West Bank is hemorrhaging Christians." In fact, the population of Christians in the West Bank has risen from approximately 40,000 in 1968 to approximately 60,000 today. It should also be noted that in the late 1940s, there were approximately 60,000 Christians living in the West Bank and that this population declined to approximately 40,000 just prior to the Six Day War in 1967. This decline in absolute numbers took place under Jordanian, not Israeli rule. This indicates that Israeli control of the West Bank has actually made life safer for Christians in that territory, a point that affirms Oren's basic point.

 

Despite these minor distractions, Oren's premise was unassailable. This may help explain why it prompted such an angry reaction. The Wall Street Journal publishedfour letters in response to Oren's piece. It seems there was an organized letter-writing campaign against him.  Now there must be a campaign of truth.

Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited. By MICHAEL OREN

The church in Bethlehem had survived more than 1,000 years, through wars and conquests, but its future now seemed in jeopardy. Spray-painted all over its ancient stone walls were the Arabic letters for Hamas. The year was 1994 and the city was about to pass from Israeli to Palestinian control. I was meeting with the church's clergy as an Israeli government adviser on inter-religious affairs. They were despondent but too frightened to file a complaint. The same Hamas thugs who had desecrated their sanctuary were liable to take their lives.

The trauma of those priests is now commonplace among Middle Eastern Christians. Their share of the region's population has plunged from 20% a century ago to less than 5% today and falling. In Egypt, 200,000 Coptic Christians fled their homes last year after beatings and massacres by Muslim extremist mobs. Since 2003, 70 Iraqi churches have been burned and nearly a thousand Christians killed in Baghdad alone, causing more than half of this million-member community to flee. Conversion to Christianity is a capital offense in Iran, where last month Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death. Saudi Arabia outlaws private Christian prayer.

As 800,000 Jews were once expelled from Arab countries, so are Christians being forced from lands they've inhabited for centuries.

The only place in the Middle East where Christians aren't endangered but flourishing is Israel. Since Israel's founding in 1948, its Christian communities (including Russian and Greek Orthodox, Catholics, Armenians and Protestants) have expanded more than 1,000%.

Christians are prominent in all aspects of Israeli life, serving in the Knesset, the Foreign Ministry and on the Supreme Court. They are exempt from military service, but thousands have volunteered and been sworn in on special New Testaments printed in Hebrew. Israeli Arab Christians are on average more affluent than Israeli Jews and better-educated, even scoring higher on their SATs.

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A damaged crucifix survives the burning of a Greek-Orthodox church in Tulkarem in the West Bank on Sept. 17, 2006.

This does not mean that Israeli Christians do not occasionally encounter intolerance. But in contrast to elsewhere in the Middle East where hatred of Christians is ignored or encouraged, Israel remains committed to its Declaration of Independence pledge to "ensure the complete equality of all its citizens irrespective of religion." It guarantees free access to all Christian holy places, which are under the exclusive aegis of Christian clergy. When Muslims tried to erect a mosque near the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Israeli government interceded to preserve the sanctity of the shrine.

Israel abounds with such sites (Capernaum, the Hill of the Beatitudes, the birth place of St. John the Baptist) but the state constitutes only part of the Holy Land. The rest, according to Jewish and Christian tradition, is in Gaza and the West Bank. Christians in those areas suffer the same plight as their co-religionists throughout the region.

Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, half the Christian community has fled. Christmas decorations and public displays of crucifixes are forbidden. In a December 2010 broadcast, Hamas officials exhorted Muslims to slaughter their Christian neighbors. Rami Ayad, owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, was murdered, his store reduced to ash. This is the same Hamas with which the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank recently signed a unity pact.

Little wonder, then, that the West Bank is also hemorrhaging Christians. Once 15% of the population, they now make up less than 2%. Some have attributed the flight to Israeli policies that allegedly deny Christians economic opportunities, stunt demographic growth, and impede access to the holy sites of Jerusalem. In fact, most West Bank Christians live in cities such as Nablus, Jericho and Ramallah, which are under Palestinian Authority control. All those cities have experienced marked economic growth and sharp population increase—among Muslims.

Israel, in spite of its need to safeguard its borders from terrorists, allows holiday access to Jerusalem's churches to Christians from both the West Bank and Gaza. In Jerusalem, the number of Arabs—among them Christians—has tripled since the city's reunification by Israel in 1967.

There must be another reason, then, for the West Bank's Christian exodus. The answer lies in Bethlehem. Under Israeli auspices, the city's Christian population grew by 57%. But under the Palestinian Authority since 1995, those numbers have plummeted. Palestinian gunmen seized Christian homes—compelling Israel to build a protective barrier between them and Jewish neighborhoods—and then occupied the Church of the Nativity, looting it and using it as a latrine. Today, Christians comprise a mere one-fifth of their holy city's population.

The extinction of the Middle East's Christian communities is an injustice of historic magnitude. Yet Israel provides an example of how this trend can not only be prevented but reversed. With the respect and appreciation that they receive in the Jewish state, the Christians of Muslim countries could not only survive but thrive.

Mr. Oren is Israel's ambassador to the United States.

A version of this article appeared Mar. 9, 2012, on page A13 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians.